pathos
by despairgirls
Summary: But he has a job to do. In Risotto's absence he's the one that gets shit done. On paper that's acting as the boss when he isn't there. Even if it means, hypothetically speaking, eating where he shits. (Melone, Ghiaccio, and a too-long car ride on the road to finding the boss's daughter.)


_Don't shit where you eat_ is an awful phrase, bereft of any expectations that the receiver of such "advice" is anything other than a _filthy animal_ who can't differentiate between a toilet and a trough. It is a disgusting phrase and terrible romantic advice, the context the scattered few times Ghiaccio had ever heard it thrown around in. Most people run the gamut from average to simply too dumb to live, but even a simpleton could figure it would be bad to get cozy with someone he has to see every single day at work. Going home to see the exact same person you've spent eight hours with already is, quite frankly, a terrible situation to be in.

Ghiaccio doesn't even like his capo _that_ much, and it's practically a given he's the goddamn right hand at this point.

It is a disgusting phrase, and Ghiaccio can not get it out of his head.

He blames it on the road and the passenger and the fact he's spent twenty of the past twenty-four hours with his hands on the steering wheel and Melone sidled up next to him, alternating between staring at the window with a hand cradling his chin and- and what Ghiaccio can only assume is sleeping with his uncovered eye open.

He's heard it's possible. It's fucking creepy.

"You look tense," Melone observes, and it takes a second to register a sound that isn't Ghiaccio's scattered, irritated thoughts or the dull hum of the engine. Out of the corner of his eye, he's smiling in the same wane way that's almost, almost a facsimile of a pitying grin if Melone had even an ounce of empathy in his system.

"No shit." His grip on the steering wheel is white-knuckle tight. The first words spoken to him in almost two hours and it's simple and enough to get just so under his skin. He's a hangnail in human form.

He is the only reason they know Formaggio and Illuso are dead. He is the only one with the foresight to somehow draw blood from someone already biting at the chomp to get some sort of retribution and the one man they can barely keep track of as-is.

(How he got the blood is another matter entirely, and frankly, the less Ghiaccio knows about how Baby Face works the happier he is.)

Ghiaccio wants so badly to explode; something about going off on him would feel so, _so_ good, a release of the barely-concealed anger that's been bubbling under the surface of his skin (of _everyone's_ skin) since thirty-six pieces of one of their own was delivered to their doorsteps like the goddamn morning paper.

-Almost everyone.

The only thing he's sure Melone feels is the most minimal interest in his own longevity.

What separates humans and animals is thinking and feeling and the ability to differentiate between a meal and a toilet and the goddamn capacity to come up with the most disgusting sayings to get under his skin and dance around what's really _half-assed advice._

What separates humans from animals in Melone's eyes is anyone's guess. Ghiaccio's sure there's no difference. He has only really observed their tracker in action once, and the humorless laughter that followed a successful "birth" has the same effect as everything else Melone does: it mimics something joyful and human in the most clinical way possible.

It's goddamn **creepy**. He's asked several times before where exactly Risotto found this guy and every time the answer has been unsatisfactory. It's not the time, nor place, but it's buzzing at the front of his skull now with shitty life coach advice and Melone's mockery of a smile.

* * *

Naples' Station is the usual amounts of buzzing background noise. Notices for a cancelled train flash at the corner of Ghiaccio's eyes when they slowly pull in but he doesn't given them the time of day.

He's meant only to drop Melone off and then he's out of his hair.

He knows his orders, directly from Ghiaccio and approved by their capo. He's trailing Prosciutto and Pesci and picking up-

"-on the off chance Buccellati slips through our fingers again." Melone's inflection is dull, only half-listening to Ghiaccio, already in his own world with his own calculations and Baby Face in his lap with the car door half-open. "They both work better in close quarters, but they aren't very subtle. That rapid aging does very little to help _me_."

"Prosciutto isn't stupid. He knows what he's doing."

"Ah, ah. So you say. Man in the Mirror _was_ supposed to be pretty infallible, too. This- Bruno, is it? Bruno Buccellati. What an interesting man."

Melone's legs dangle out of the car, always half threatening to make his exit but musing at something underneath his breath that Ghiaccio can't quite hear. Baby Face's screen is angled away- _for the best_.

Ghiaccio would love to facilitate his exit with a decisive shove.

But he has a job to do. In Risotto's absence he's the one that gets shit done. On paper that's acting as the boss when he isn't there.

And it means keeping his men in check, even the ones who would readily leave the rest of them to burn and watch with the same interest as a scientist watching mice desperately work through mazes.

Even if it means, hypothetically speaking, _eating where he shits_. Even if it means spending over a day with a man who is caustic for the sake of being such, to observe how it shapes the people around him.

Melone is the type of man to dispense such half-baked advice as what's been batting around in Ghiaccio's head due to lack of sleep and pointedly tuning out the vague musings of their squad's tracker. It's tedious, it's sickening, and it's the kind of saying Melone would let slip because he knows it gets a _reaction_.

" _Ciao_." Melone's voice is light and unconcerned when he finally slips out- he'll get a ride on his own from here on out.

 _Don't eat where you shit._

Feh.

Ghiaccio looks over his shoulder while he backs out slowly, head starting to pound, Melone visible from the rearview mirror.

* * *

Cross-posted on ao3.

I've always seen Ghiaccio as the second-in-command in La Squadra. Go back and re-read White Album; I feel like he's a lot smarter than anyone gives him credit for.

Conversely, Melone is a lot creepier on a second read-through.

It's to no one's surprise they're my favorite members of La Squadra.

What is the true nature of their relationship? Good question.


End file.
